I arrived at Sucre bus station at 5am, jumped in a cab and went straight to bed once I arrived at my hostel. They normally don’t open until 7am but had agreed to open early so I could get into my room, which was really kind of them. I slept until around 9am which was just what I needed.

When I woke up the guy showed me round the hostel and gave me some tips on where to go and what to do.

I dropped off my laundry at the nearby laundrette and then had breakfast at a local cafe. I wandered round the city a bit – it is very white – and then went to the Bolivar park which is the main park in Sucre. They have a miniature Eifel tower and a pond with bushes shaped like frogs. I sat in the sun for a bit and then walked back to the hostel and took some more photos looking down on the city.

I decided to do a walking tour in the afternoon to hear more about the history and culture of Bolivia and Sucre.

We started off by learning about the indigenous people and saw some of the amazing weaving they make – many of which tell a story. The weaves can take up to a year to make and it takes around 10 years of watching your mother weaving before you can start doing it yourself.

Many of the locals in Bolivia speak Quechua and not Spanish and it is being taught again in Bolivian schools.

We then moved on to plaza 25 de Mayo where we saw the main cathedral and the city hall. Inside the cathedral is a statue of the virgin of Guadalupe which contains many gems including diamonds. There has beem some debate about selling part of the statue to get money to build new schools or hospitals etc in Sucre but the people living in sucre are mainly catholic so won’t allow this to happen. The statue in tbe square is of the second president of Bolivia following the start of the revolution.

jing.

The next stop was Parque Santa Cruz where we saw the San Francisco church. This apparently was where the revolution and fight for independence against the Spaniards began. A young lad was imprisoned for no reason and some other people found out about this. They ran to the church and rang the bell so hard it broke- the bell is known now as the bell of freedom.

It was then onto the central market which sells absolutely everything. It was really colourful and also really clean.

I tried the green fruit which is called chirimoya and is only produced in Sucre. It was delicious. At the juicebar I tried some tumbo which looks a bit like a cucumber but tastes more like passion fruit. Others in the group had different juices so we got to try a variety of flavours including cactus juice and Alfa juice.

From here we walked to Boliviar park and our guide, Lucho, explained that although La Paz was now the capital of Bolivia, the justice element of the government still resided in Sucre which used to be the capital city. This is the justice HQ.

From here we caught a local bus to the area of Recolete. There are no official bus stops and you just flag the bus down anywhere along the route it goes.

The streets and houses in this area are exactly how they used to be when the Spaniards came and the houses cannot be altered, although they can of course be repaired. The main street is Gato street, cat street, as the place used to be full of cats. But now, like most of South America it has a lot of street dogs.

We walked on to a local ‘pub which was basically someone’s house and tried some chicha – fermented corn. I tried some of this in Columbia but preferred the Bolivian version.

We played a game of frog – where basically you had to try and throw some heavy coins into the mouth of the frog. You scored points depending on the holes the coins went down – if any. I managed a fairly decent score of 50.

The last stop was the main square and watching the sunset over Sucre. The main square is where the city of Sucre was officially founded.

We strolled back into town and I went to a little restaurant called La Taverna, where I had some delicious grilled trout. It was a great place and the food and wine were superb. Lisa from Germany, who I met on the walking tour came and joined me for a glass of wine.

I returned to the hostel and packed my bag for tomorrow as I’m going trekking to a crater.